Stacia Kane

Last night I participated in #Querychat on Twitter. And one of the participants asked about her online reviews; I think it was whether she should link to her blog in a query. The agent who answered, Jill Corcoran, basically said, “Go ahead and link if you want, but it’s a good idea to take off any bad reviews of any of the agent’s clients before you do, and the same goes for editors.”

This led into quite a long discussion, in which I, of course, poked my nose.

The asker asked if by “bad” reviews Jill meant nasty/mean ones, or if she just meant reviews where they didn’t like the book. Jill and I both replied–and I believe Weronika Janczuk, another agent, joined us as well, in saying…well, yeah, even just reviews where they didn’t like the book.

The thing is, I think people tend to forget that agents sign clients because they love their work. Yes, they think it’ll sell, but that’s part of loving it. My agent? Loves my work. Likes reading what I write, and wants to read it, and looks forward to reading it (which is the way it should be). So if you hate my work because it’s nothing like the stuff you like, which presumably is the sort of thing you write…well, your work is probably pretty different from the kind of thing my agent likes, right? So there’s one strike against you.

I mentioned that I personally would be rather hurt if my agent signed someone who’d trashed me/my work, or even just said negative things about me/my work online. My friend Yasmine Galenorn agreed with me, and said she wouldn’t help that person out, either, like with a blurb or whatever. Which I agree with, as well.

The Asker was surprised. She didn’t think authors would get so angry over a bad review.

But it’s not anger. It’s not anger at all, really; I can’t think of a review of my work that’s ever made me angry, to be honest. Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, and to express that opinion wherever and whenever. But…the purpose of a review, the whole reason reviews came about and exist, is to tell people whether or not they should read that book/buy that TV/use that hair gel/wear those shoes. That’s what a review is, and what it does. You may do a lot of other stuff along with your reviews, and use them to start long involved discussions, but the fact is, people read reviews first and foremost to see if the product–in this case a book–is worth buying.
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Somehow–I’m not entirely certain–I’ve become buried under a work avalanche. A whole bunch of stuff at once. Let’s list them, shall we?

1. A short story for an anthology. It’s a “ghost romance” story, due Feb. 1. While I’d had a sort of loose half-plan to write something non-Downside, just for fun/to do a different take on ghosts, it occurred to me that really, people are going to want and expect a Downside story (and you all know shorts aren’t really my forte, anyway, so it’s difficult enough for me to come up with stuff for them; all of my ideas want to turn themselves into novels). Plus, it is a ghost *romance* anthology, so it might be fun to do a Downside story a little more on the sweet side.

So that’s what I’m doing. A romance-y story–more like a romantic story, really–with some nice sex and sappiness (short spoiler if you haven’t read CITY OF GHOSTS: Yes, that means a Chess/Terrible sex scene) to go with all the kinky pervy creepiness that’ll be in there too. I’m not sure what the release date will be on it yet, but I imagine it’ll be at some point near the end of the year. I will of course keep you posted.

2. A dark erotic novella I had an idea for a while ago. There’s no rush on this, and I haven’t actually started it yet. My original plan was to self-publish it (because I had such a blast doing the Strumpet book), but I mentioned it to my EC editor and she’s interested in seeing it, so we’ll see what happens. It’s a very, very dark story, so may not be right for them. But either way, it’s on my list and it’ll be out there at some point.

3. A new novel project I’m working on. Again, no rush on it, but it’s coming along. Hopefully well. I can’t be sure. It’s something I’ve been toying with for a while, actually, and this is sort of a re-start, so we’ll see where it goes.

4. Downside 5. Yes, this is actually the second thing on my list, to start as soon as I finish the short. And it’s due in early April, I think, and I’m determined not to miss my deadline this time. And I’m very excited to dive into it! I think it’s going to be really fun to write, and hopefully it’ll be really fun to read.

5. Edits for Downside 4. These haven’t come in yet, but I expect them pretty much any day.

6. Another novella, likely for self-pubbing, set in the Demons world. I’ve been asked for (DEMON POSSESSED spoiler) Megan & Greyson’s wedding quite a bit, and at some point I’d like to do that, and maybe slip Nick & Tera’s story in there as well. I’m not sure when I’ll get to this, so I guess technically it’s not on my plate at the moment, but it is on my master list, so there you go.

7. And of course, Downside 6.

I also have a guest blog post due, like, tomorrow (eep!) and I have no frickin clue what to write about, so if anyone has any suggestions/questions they’d like answered, pleeeeease leave them in comments, or @ me on Twitter, or whatever.

Oh, and a couple of interviews that I also need to get to. Not to mention the reader email; I’m caught up to like mid-October now. I’m trying to do reader email every Saturday night for a couple of hours, but it’s not really working out that way these days. I’m going to see if I can’t get back into that, though, because it’s important.

A few more things:

This blog is hilarious. It’s done by a guy who owns a comic shop, and it’s basically little one-panel cartoons of some of the customers in all their crazy/stupid/dickheady glory. Even if you don’t read comics, I guarantee you’ll find something to laugh at.

This blog is full of fantastic inspiration. I get all sorts of cool ideas from looking at pictures like these, so if you do too it’s worth a look.

Mac Cosmetics is doing a new line of Wonder Woman make-up. I am not making that up. Take a look. Kind of old-woman-y colors, though, aren’t they? That lipstick looks like the sort of nail polish shade my mother has fifteen jars of. Like a swollen tongue.

If you’re in the UK, make sure you check the book shelves at your local Asda, because they’ve agreed to stock the Downside books! My HarperUK editor informed me of this the other day and I’m all squeaky thrilled. It won’t be in all their stores but it’ll be in some, and it’s a big deal for me (Asda doesn’t usually stock my kind of books), so let’s hope they sell there.

I think that’s it. So to sum up (I don’t know why I’ve been “summing up” lately, it’s not like you didn’t read the damn post yourself):

*I am busy as shit.

*I have to write a guest post for which I have not a single relevant idea.

*Lots of interesting pictures and funnies can be found online (who knew?).

*Wonder Woman apparently prefers pressed powder, and makes some rather dull color choices for her line.

*You can buy my books at Asda at the same time you pick up your new towels, washing-up liquid, fish fingers, and sticky toffee pudding (mmm, sticky toffee pudding).

Two quick things before I start:

1. I anticipate opening the neato new revamped much bigger Downside Market on Monday. It will be at Spreadshirt, and I’m really excited; I’ve got a ton of new designs and I’m really hoping everyone thinks they’re as much fun as I do. So make sure to stop in on Monday to get the link!

2. I’ve done a new spiffy print version of the Strumpet series, on Createspace! For only $4.99!! I’m really, really excited about being able to offer it at that price, and it was tons of fun to do. So I’m quite pleased. It’s a 130-page paperback, and you can get it on Amazon here or on Createspace here. And as always, if anyone who’s read and enjoyed the series–either here on the blog or through purchasing it–would take a few minutes to write a little review somewhere that would be much appreciated.

SO. Last night the hubs and I were hanging out in the living room, and for whatever reason the conversation turned to nudity. Specifically, how long does it take a couple to be totally comfortable being naked in front of each other–not in an intimate situation, but in a “I’m just going to sit here naked and talk to you for twenty minutes” kind of way. And of course that’s different for everyone, but it was just an abstract talk.

In the course of it, I mentioned that I think men are in general more comfortable being naked. They don’t seem as shy as women about their nudity. And my speculation was that A) That’s because men have less to hide, by which I mean that a shirtless man is something you see all the time in the summer, but a shirtless woman…not so much. When men get hot they can be bare-chested. Not so with women. and B) That men are more accustomed to being naked in front of people because of showers after gym etc., whereas women didn’t have that.

The hubs was frankly astounded. It had never occurred to him that girls in school weren’t forced to strip down and shower in a communal shower just as much as guys were, and it shocked him to hear that no, we were never forced to do that. We weren’t even encouraged to do that. When we did our two-week swimming segment, we generally rinsed off while still wearing our swimsuits, then wrapping a towel around ourselves, drying off, then stripping and re-dressing under the towel. Or at least waiting to release the towel until we had bra and panties on.

Perhaps it was just my school or school system. But I can’t be the only girl who was essentially raised to keep hidden, you know? Being in underwear around other girls wasn’t necessarily a big deal–although for us late bloomers it was a whole different, and very painful, set of problems–but naked? Not something I ever did, or do. (But then, I read something a few years back where a girl mentioned that she and her friends had compared ladyparts one night. I can’t imagine doing that. I once knew a girl who was very open–literally–about being naked. Certainly were there a problem I wouldn’t be uncomfortable asking the BFF for help with something, or with helping her, but I can’t see us sitting around just thinking it would be fun to look.)

Anyway. I think it does change as you age. I think adult women in locker rooms are probably not as self-conscious. But I don’t think young girls are taught to be as comfortable with their naked bodies as boys are, and I wonder if that’s still the case, or how it’s changed, or how it might have been/might be different elsewhere.

Before I start I want to make something really, really clear. This post is NOT about any specific review outlet/magazine/blog/website. It is NOT claiming this is the case for all reviewers, in all places, or that this is a constant. And most importantly it is NOT saying reviewers can’t feel about a book however they want to, or view it through any lens they want to, or whatever else. I also want to make it absolutely, positively clear that I am thrilled beyond words at how readers and reviewers in general have taken to my books and characters; this isn’t about some sort of personal grudge on my behalf, not at all. It’s just something I’ve been thinking about for a while, and I’ve seen several other people discussing it recently, so wanted to stick my nose in.

I also want to mention something else, because judging from a couple of comments I need to clarify. The story about bookstore shelving was one small indie bookstore. This has nothing to do with where books are shelved. It’s about the perceptions of those books once purchased/the standards by which they are judged/the dismissal of them. But it’s not about where they’re shelved at all.

What kinds of books do women write?

I know, I know. Women write all kinds of books. But it seems–from a very extensive search I’ve done over the last few weeks/months of various bookseller sites/review sites/magazines/databases/blogs/whatever elses, that books written by women are far, far more likely to be categorized as romance, reviewed as romance, and judged by romance standards, than are books written by men.

In a Twitter discussion about this (Twitter use update: I’ve been using Hootsuite the last few days because Seesmic has a slight tendency to balk when I leave it up all the time, which I do; it’s always the second tab in my browser. I do miss the little crunch noise, though, and will be going back to Seesmic; I like switching back and forth between them, but Seesmic is the main one I use) someone told me about a bookstore near them where any books written by women that have any sort of romance subplot or whatever–including sci-fi and of course urban fantasy–are shelved as romance. Period. SFF written by men is SFF, no matter how big the romance subplot is. But if the author has ladyparts, it’s romance.

I’ve talked before here about the frustration of women’s books–urban fantasy in particular–being categorized/called/dismissed “chick books” just because there are sex scenes in them or just because finding love/romance is part of the story. And how romance is often a subplot in books written by men, too, but those books are not dismissed or judged as romances, and why it is that women’s books are denigrated as “not real fantasy” if they contain stronger romance elements but those written by men aren’t.

Neil Gaiman’s STARDUST, for example, is still called and reviewed as Fantasy, despite its incredibly strong romance plot/subplot. But I’ve seen Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel’s Legacy series called and reviewed as Romance. Why? What’s the difference? Carey calls her books Fantasy. Gaiman calls his book(s) Fantasy. Why is his categorization honored and hers isn’t? More to the point, why do reviews of his book–including reviews written by women, too–focus on the writing and story, whereas reviews of Carey’s books focus on the romance?

In her book How to Suppress Women’s Writing, Joanna Russ–herself a fantasy/sci-fi author, among other things–uses as one of her methods “False Categorizing.” She says:

It is bad faith that stands behind what I shall call Denial by False Categorizing, a complicated now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t sleight of hand in which works or authors are belittled by assigning them to the “wrong” category, or arranging the categories so the majority of “wrong” Glotolog fall into the “wrong” category without anyone’s having to do anything further about the matter.

Later, she elaborates a little further:

The assignment of genre can also function as false categorizing, especially when the work appears to fall between established genres and can thereby be assigned to either (and then called an imperfect example of it) or chided for belonging to neither.

Does this sound familiar?

Again, reviewers have every right to bring their own tastes, thoughts, and opinions to a review; honestly, this really isn’t about reviews or reviewers as such. It’s more about genre itself. But what’s happening is, every time a work of literature, or a work of fiction in a genre that is not romance is reviewed as a romance, that author is being denied her agency; she is being denied the right to have her work seen on its own merits, and is instead being forced back into a particular box. In other words, her work is being denigrated not because it isn’t a good or worthwhile example of what it is, but because it’s not a good or worthwhile example of something it never claimed to be.

This is akin to giving Schindler’s List a bad review because it isn’t funny enough, or complaining about Caddyshack because the viewer didn’t find it scary. That these films never claimed or set out to be funny or scary doesn’t matter; the work isn’t being judged by how well it is what it’s supposed to be, but by the standards of something completely alien–standards which may even be totally unknown to the filmmakers.

Is this a way of suppressing women’s writing?

How many books by men do you see re-categorized in this fashion, either as women’s fiction or romance or whatever?

I often see Lolita discussed when the topic of underage sex comes up in regards to romance. And the very correct argument is made that Lolita is not a romance, and therefore should not be judged by romance standards. But do you think the difference would be so clearly and carefully mentioned if Lolita was called Laurence, and was written by Valentina Nabakov? Do you think people would avoid mentioning how sad and saggy Humbertina Humbertina was, how desperate to recapture her youth, how sexually useless she was, being past her sell-by date?

Of course, I am chiefly talking about genre fiction here, since it’s where my experience is and what I read, so it’s what I pay more attention to. But I honestly can’t recall the last time I saw Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden novels dismissed as “chick books” or downgraded in reviews because the reader didn’t fall in love with the main love interest in whatever story. I don’t remember seeing Mike Carey’s Felix Castor novels treated that way either. But I see lots of urban fantasies by women being downgraded for exactly that reason.

It’s not just the romance or lack thereof, though. It’s the “unwritten rules of romance” which are applied to women’s books but not men’s. And they’re applied not just by reviewers, not by a long shot (like I said, this really isn’t about reviewers) by society in general, who insists on shoving books into certain boxes or classifying them/their main characters as “good” or “bad” according to a strict set of rules.

It’s about how male characters–in any genre–can sleep around and their exploits are cheered; it even makes them more desirable, but a promiscuous heroine–again, in any genre–is looked down upon. Not only is she disliked for her sexual escapades, but it’s automatically taken as a sign of some intrinsic weakness in her character, i.e. she obviously needs sexual approval to feel whole, or she obviously has no self-respect.

The promiscuous heroine is unlikable–and worse than unlikable, she is unworthy–simply because she likes sex, and likes to have it with whomever strikes her fancy, at any time she feels the urge. Again, whereas the promiscuous hero is applauded; he is an object of desire. Getting him to settle down is the chief achievement of the heroine in those romances or romance subplots, in fact (of course, it should be in a genre romance). Every woman’s dream is to make him settle down, and if any negative mention is made of his bed-hopping past it’s made with a sort of wink, a boys-will-be-boys sigh. Either that, or his past promiscuity is made much of, but it’s made clear that this sort of prudery is part of the heroine’s prim/uptight character. She’s generally a virgin, or someone who’s only slept with one or two men, and she generally has other very straight-laced views and thoughts.

The hero’s promiscuity is an aspect of his character, which may or may not have consequences. The heroine’s promiscuity is a flaw, one she usually must answer for.

It’s also about how male characters can be distant or cold, even in some cases borderline psychotic/sociopathic, but they’re still regarded as likable and appealing. Whereas a cold and/or distant heroine is regarded with hostility and suspicion, because women are “supposed” to be kind/loving/feeling/friendly/caring.

Male characters can be intrinsically violent; shoot first, ask questions later, and readers approve. When female characters are like this they’re called “too angry” or “flies off the handle too fast” or, again, just plain “unlikable.”

A man whose morality is relative is morally relative. A woman whose morals are relative is morally vacant.

And yes, when male characters have drinking or substance abuse problems very little mention is made of it–the hard-drinking detective is a genre staple, in fact–but for a female character to do the same makes her a bad or unworthy person, one who should be ashamed of herself.

Does whether or not the author is a man or a woman make a difference as to how these characters are perceived? What do you think?

What about if the main character is a man or a woman? I haven’t seen any reviews of K.A. Stewart’s A Devil in the Details (which is excellent, btw, and has a male MC) called romance or put down for being UF, but J.F. Lewis’s Staked was dismissed by quite a few people simply because it has a woman on the cover, regardless of the fact that the MC is a man; and some people who did expect it to be a romance judged it rather harshly because it isn’t, although, again, it never claimed to be..

How much of a difference does it make if the reviewer or reader is a man or a woman? I see far less slut-shaming coming from men/male reviewers than I do female ones, but I also see men/male reviewers as quicker to dismiss books by women unread because it “looks like a romance,” or to cast it aside as a romance because there is a sex scene in it or a romantic subplot, as if romance isn’t a valid genre in and of itself or one that may have some worth to men (again, I discussed all of that this summer, and how I don’t understand male dismissal of romance or of UF by calling it romance, or the sort of “eeew cooties” mentality which seems to often go along with that dismissal). Again, that may simply be where I’m looking.

How much of this do you think is because of the blending of genres? Perhaps because the genres have blended a bit to a certain degree, readers/reviewers/whomever are paying less attention to authorial intent/classification (although again, it seems men’s wishes/thoughts in that regard are taken more seriously and heeded far more).

I just find this all saddening, and disturbing. I find the way women tend to put down other women for not conforming to be very disturbing, and always have; it’s been an issue with a direct effect on me my whole life, quite frankly. And while I stopped caring about shit like “fitting in” or being accepted by people who were essentially unpleasant, or whose entire achievements were that they had very shiny hair, or people who were narrow-minded that anyone who had a different viewpoint or opinion on an issue was automatically worthy of insult or simply stupid/lying/whatever–people who felt they had a right to judge others and/or the choices of others based on the presumption that everyone had the same privileges, possibilities, educations, finances, lives, cultures, etc. as they did–it still disturbs me. (In fact, I read a fantastic quote the other day that summed up my feelings on it exactly. It’s from Destroy All Movies!!! The Complete Guide to Punks on Film (which is tons of fun, btw, and the authors definitely know their shit) which reads: Acceptance from the fascist hierarchy is death of the spirit.

This sums up pretty much my whole life.)

I certainly don’t intend to blame anyone for this. My thought is more to examine it. Is this something we do, consciously or unconsciously? How guilty are we all of doing it? It’s not something isolated; it’s pretty widespread. And I believe that the person ultimately hurt by this is the reader, because they’re not being given accurate pictures of what the books are and are not; the romance reader who grabs a book from the romance shelf in the bookstore mentioned above, only to discover it’s not in fact a romance, will be pretty angry, and they have every right to be.

And is this inevitable? Are we all going to judge a main character according to our specific 21st-century Western middle-class/upper-middle class standards, with no regard for time period/world/adversity suffered/whatever else? (This is part of another discussion, actually, the one about characters in historical novels being surprisingly PC or about books written hundreds of years ago being rewritten to make them more “acceptable” to modern audiences.)

What do you think? Have you see instances of this lately? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

(I’m taking the title from the “Turd Sandwich vs. Douche” South Park episode, which is, I think, my favorite bit ever on that show; the song, I mean. Because the point here is, which do you like best?)

I’m not going to say which is my favorite.

Also…I do really like the haircut. And I’m starting to wonder if it wouldn’t look just adorable dyed black? Maybe with some fire-engine red or raspberry in it (I have both)? So I might do that at some point soon. That’s the best thing about having shorter hair; you can play with the colors a lot more because who cares if it gets damaged? Especially when you put numerous gobs of “product” in it to get it to stand up straight and all of that. Seriously, my dresser top is full of thickening potions, heat protectors, spray gels, softeners, sea-salt effect sprays, big hair mousses…and then in the bathroom are four different kinds of wax/pomade/hair glue thingys. (Currently I’m using–and really liking–Beyond the Zone Spike It Hair Cement. Definitely recommend it. I use their mousse wax too. Really good stuff, and not expensive either. I got a ton of stuff 2-for-1 at Sallys. Oh, and I became a Sally’s member, which would be great except I apparently didn’t form my C well enough and I now get regular emails for “Stalia.” Sigh.)

Anyway. Thinking of going black. Might be fun. And it’s not like I can’t bleach it back easily; I’ve been bleaching my own hair for years and years, I can mix up a good bleach in a heartbeat (well, anyone can, really, it’s not hard). Last time I got my haircut, on Xmas Eve, the guy asked if I’d ever considered being a hairdresser myself, because he was impressed with my bleach job and I told him how I cut my own hair for years, and my husband’s, and my ex-boyfriend’s too. I had considered it, actually, but now I’m working on this writing thing. But I still really enjoy doing that stuff.

Some of these are cropped, some aren’t. I’ve done a black-and-white version of a lot of them, and/or added a nifty effect to for fun to a few, and a few are just there for fun to begin with. Sorry, but I’m having a hell of a time trying to get these to upload in a normal-looking fashion–I have no idea why WordPress isn’t recognizing my returns and insists on putting several pictures per line, and then when I add < li > it makes those dots (but at least the pictures aren’t smooshed on top of each other). So…sorry about that.

LOTS of pictures under the cut:

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I turned in Book 4 last night, at about one in the morning (I would have kept it until this morning, but we’re having this storm here and there were some predictions that the power could go out etc., so I didn’t want to take a chance). I’ve suggested a title that my editor seems to like, and my agent seems to like, although I can tell he’s not super enthusiastic about it, so we’ll see.

Final word count–this is after my edit, there’s still at least one more edit to come after my editor gets a look at it–is 122,920 words. That’s about 13k more than CITY OF GHOSTS, and that’s pre-epigrams (I add those in editing).

I’ve done a re-read of it and while I’m never happy with them–I feel this one is particularly dull–even I have to admit that at least the writing is good, which pleases me. So we’ll see what happens from here.

As I’d predicted/intended, it’s much more Lex’s book than anyone else’s. But don’t worry, Terrible fans, he’s still in there, and the next book will be extremely Terrible-heavy.

Anyway, there we go. I have a short to write which is due February 1st for a different antho–and I’m going to do a non-Downside story for this one–so I’ll be working on that, and at some point in the next week or two I’ll start Book 5. Which also does not have a title yet.

Neither of them have a release date. I promise, as soon as I have one I will tell you!

Later tonight I think I’m going to have the hubs take some pictures for an updated author photo, which is kind of scary. I hate the way I photograph, to be honest. And my current photo is, I believe, the best picture ever taken of me. So that’s going to be hard to top. Of course, if I don’t get one I like as much I’ll just keep that one, but we’ll see. It snowed here last night–the “winter storm,”–so I’ll have a snow-covered tree in the background, which will be pretty cool, I think.

I’ve had a lot of questions lately about the Downside Market. I’m working as hard/fast as I can to get all the designs transferred to Spreadshirt, and to come up with some fun new ones. Now that the book is turned in I’ll hopefully be able to get it up and running soon, maybe not with all of the designs in place–a few of them are too small for Spreadshirt’s qualifications, and I’m waiting for resized versions–but with enough, and in enough color choices etc. So again, if you have any suggestions or ideas for something you’d like to see on a shirt, don’t hesitate to say something!

So later I may very well be posting some pictures, and later in the week I’ll be doing some more relevant posts again, but for now that’s it.

Well, it snowed on Christmas Day. Which was lovely and all, but the roads were icy. And it snowed on Boxing Day. And the hubs had a bad cold, which he’s sort of given to me and the Faerie. All of which adds up to, we had to cancel our trip to Florida. Which also added up to us wasting money on a rental car that sat in our driveway for three days and then got returned. Yay.

So to cheer myself up I gave away some ebooks on Twitter, which was fun. (These were copies of my EC titles, the erotic romances.) And–this is so awesome, and definitely cheered me up big-time–one of my followers actually named her new Kindle “Chessiebomb,” which was so awesome I had to buy her a copy of UNHOLY GHOSTS for Kindle. (That’s not going to work again, just so you know, heh.)

And of course I’ve been doing some writing and all of that stuff, and hanging out with my family, and coughing up goo, so it’s really been a great holiday

Here’s a picture:

Sheesh. I had a whole post written here about goals and editing and all sort of other things, but I somehow got logged out of WordPress and now it’s disappeared and I don’t feel like writing it all again, sigh. Probably for the best. I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, so my moping and musing may not be the healthiest or most cheerful thing to read; let’s ring in the new year with some reminders of how self-destructive the human race is, and what a bunch of nasty, judgmental little bastards we are, too!

I’ll be fine, though, and I’ll be back soon–in the next week–with some actual worthwhile blog content, I promise.

Meanwhile, I hope you all have a wonderful and safe new year! Take care of yourselves, because I seriously need every reader I can get and can’t afford to lose a single one of you. Ha ha ha. (Seriously, do take care!)

(Oh, and as another aside. At some point soon I think I’m going to try to get another “official author photo” done. I hate the way I photograph, generally, so wish me luck, eep!)

I’m sending out a longer excerpt from this scene to Downside Army members later tonight or early tomorrow, but I thought hey, why not post a little bit here, too?

I hope you enjoy it, and that you’re having a wonderful holiday! I’ll be away for the first few days of next week, but I’ll be back before the new year. (Not that you asked or anything, just that you–oh, never mind.)

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Which I hope you’ll like, though honestly it’s not a big deal or anything. I feel kind of silly saying it’s a gift, like “Oh look, I’m so great my mere words are presents to humanity,” or something, but I wanted to do something for you guys and this is what I came up with.

Back in October, if you recall (or if you don’t) I did a guest blog on the Paranormal Haven blog. And rather than do a “This is why I like Halloween,” I wrote a very short little story about the beginning of Haunted Week. Of course, not too long after I wrote it I thought of a new, better ending for it, so I’d always meant to change it.

Anyway, last night I got a little bee in my bonnet about it. I expanded the story and gave it a new ending (it’s about 2300 words now, so still very short). Then I went to stock.xchng and grabbed a free image, took it to Picnik, and made a cover, of which I’m hugely proud, to be honest. Check it out:

Isn’t that cool? I know it’s rude to brag, but considering how challenged I am in the visual arts–seriously, I’m not good at them–I’m totally impressed with myself.

So. I tried to load it to Amazon for the Kindle and Barnes & Noble for the Nook, but neither of them would allow me to offer it for free, and there was no way I was going to charge. For a present? Nonononono. Besides, it’s only 2300 words! Even 99 cents is too much to pay for that.

So I loaded it onto the site, on the Books page (it’s near the bottom, under “Other Titles”) as a PDF. You can download it there or here: The Brave Tale of Maddie Carver

I also put it up on Smashwords, which took hours. I mean, I got it up very quickly (heh heh, that’s what she said) but it took hours for Smashwords to get it converted. You can get it here, though.

Then I popped over to Scribd to offer it there, too.

(Incidentally, I also made a new cover for BE A SEX-WRITING STRUMPET, which I’m also pleased with; that’s on Scribd as well, and will be on the Nook, and I’ve changed the cover file in the Kindle store.)

So there you go, a free story for you. Merry Holidays! Thank you so much for everything!

Also, I’ve just discovered we have some more award nominations! Paranormal Haven is doing its Best of 2010, and if you click the Vote Now link it will take you to the actual voting, where Chess is nominated for Favorite Kick-Ass Heroine and the Downside series is nominated for Favorite New Series. So if you feel like voting, do! Heck, vote whether it’s for Chess and the Downside series or not; Paranormal Haven is a great blog, and you should take a look at it/participate! Voting ends tonight!

And of course, there are still the Goodreads Awards! Best Paranormal Fantasy and Best Goodreads Author.

…so I think that’s it for today! Enjoy the short, everyone, and of course feel free to let me know what you think!

First, lookie! The German version of UNHOLY MAGIC, which will be published by Egmont Lyx in July 2011, has a cover! And a new title. SEELENZORN, which as far as I can tell means either Angry Souls or Soul’s Anger or something like that. (Also, Egmont is calling the books the “Ghostbusters series,” which is awesome and yet very scary in a trademark-infringement sort of way. So, um, I’m not the one calling it that, okay, Sharp Hawk-Eyed Lawyers? Totally not me.) Anyway, here it is:

Sigh, no bangs. But it's still cool.

There’s a blog, a review-and-interview-and-everything-books blog, called Floor to Ceiling books, and Magemanda, the lovely lady who runs it, has posted her Best Of… list for 2010. Guess who’s on it? Me! Well, me, for “Breakthrough Novelist,” which she says is in part because of YOU, and the fantastic little community you guys have made! So thank you all so much. Also–and I know this part will interest you far more–Chess and Terrible won for “Best Kiss.” Nice, huh? She doesn’t say which book it’s for, though, so I’ll ask you guys. What was the best kiss?

And I know you’re all dying to hear how my Twitter odyssey ended. It hasn’t. I did look into Destroy Twitter, which I liked the look of quite a bit–I loved that you could customize it and pick different themes. Unfortunately, not only is the info/FAQ/etc on the site really sparse, to the point where I had no idea what the thing would even DO unless I downloaded it and actually started running it, it was also a download program. Which makes me think it’s a opens-in-its-own-window thing, which as we know, I don’t want.

So it’s down to Hootsuite and Seesmic. I’m actually liking both of them. I’ve hooked up my Facebook page to Seesmic, so I’ve actually gotten a few FB updates in yesterday and today, which is nice. I don’t know if I’ll make Seesmic my only program, though. I do like it. The more I use it the more I like it.

The problem is, the more I use Hootsuite the more I like it, too. They both have things I really like and things I don’t like as much; the bad part is those things complement each other. Like I don’t like Hootsuite’s DM thing, because it doesn’t automatically show me the ones I send. But I like Hootsuite’s photo uploader much better. Plus Hootsuite has that cute little owl. But Seesmic’s FAQ etc. is more comprehensive. Seesmic allows me to quote part of someone’s tweet, and–I LOVE this–when you go to someone’s profile it tells you if they’re following you as well as whether you’re following them. So it’ll say, “This user and you follow each other,” or whatever, which I’ve always thought Twitter should do. But Hootsuite has some cool Google Chrome extensions available, whereas Seesmic has none. I love that neither of them force me to look at people they think I’d be interested in following. I detest that.

So I don’t know. For the moment I’m keeping them both open in separate tabs and switching back and forth between them, basically.

Also, an update on the Downside Market. I’m basically waiting to get bigger versions of the original designs, because some of them look really small on the shirts etc., and we don’t want that. I’m also going to get white ones to go on black or dark-colored shirts. I’m trying to make as many color options available as possible.

And I’m doing a few more with text, because that’s a bit cheaper, so again, lots of color options. I’m trying to get maybe a few Downspeech phrases in there, just some sort of fun stuff. And some of the really basic shirts are very inexpensive, which makes me happy. I’m also expanding the UF stuff a bit, more pro-genre/genre-related shirts.

And of course, if anyone out there wants to do some designs, please send them in! And if your design goes into the store I’ll send you a shirt. You can find the specifications right here, if you’re interested.

Oh, and I’m ripping out and rewriting like 40k words on Downside 4. More explosions! More violence! More dying! I’m hoping it’ll be a really good time when it’s done.

I think that’s all the updates I have for the moment.